Afghanistan — Forces Kill Insurgent in Baghlan Province

WASHINGTON, March 21, 2011 — Afghan and coali­tion forces today killed an insur­gent and detained sev­er­al oth­ers in the Burkah dis­trict of Afghanistan’s Bagh­lan province, mil­i­tary offi­cials report­ed. Troops were search­ing for a senior leader with the Islam­ic Move­ment of Uzbek­istan ter­ror­ist group in north­ern Afghanistan when they came under fire from attack­ers in a near­by field. The ene­my fight­ers maneu­vered to a house in the area, where secu­ri­ty forces killed one fight­er and even­tu­al­ly over­came the insur­gent force.

In oth­er oper­a­tions today in Afghanistan:

— Secu­ri­ty forces in Kan­da­har province’s Pan­jwai dis­trict cap­tured the Taliban’s top mil­i­tary leader in the province, along with two oth­er sus­pect­ed insur­gents.

— An air weapons team from NATO’s Inter­na­tion­al Secu­ri­ty Assis­tance Force killed numer­ous insur­gents and detained two sus­pects who were alleged­ly set­ting up an ille­gal check­point in Log­ar province’s Pul-e Alam dis­trict. The air weapons team also fired on anoth­er group of insur­gents who were mov­ing into an ambush posi­tion, killing sev­er­al more insur­gents. Also, ground forces detained two sur­vivors.

— Afghan and coali­tion forces killed numer­ous insur­gents and detained a sus­pect­ed insur­gent while search­ing for four Islam­ic Move­ment of Uzbek­istan lead­ers respon­si­ble for indi­rect fire and bomb­ing attacks in Bagh­lan province’s Burkah dis­trict. Ground troops came under attack from mul­ti­ple direc­tions by ene­my fight­ers with small arms and rock­et-pro­pelled grenades. They repelled the attack for some time before close-air sup­port arrived, killing at least 10 insur­gents.